News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
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[One should note that in traditional terms, cooperatives are actually
socialist, not capitalist.--DC]
http://tinyurl.com/5m3fbt
Business Today
Capitalism, CPI(M) style
K.R. Balasubramanyam
October 16, 2008
Why waste time trying to attract investments when you can do it
yourself? Even as the CPI(M)-led Left Front government in West Bengal
faces a long struggle to restore investor confidence following Tata
Motors’ withdrawal from Singur, the Kerala unit of the CPI(M) is
foraying into the thriving tourism and hospitality sector via
cooperative societies controlled by it -- and charging market rates with
pleasure!
With the coastal state receiving only minuscule private sector
investment in tourism and hospitality -- the only booming business—
party-controlled cooperative societies are getting to everything from
water parks to hotels and even hotel management institutes.
For instance, the party has promoted the Vismaya Infotainment Centre, a
30-acre water theme park in Kerala’s Kannur district. Now in its second
month, the park is owned by a company that in turn has been floated by a
CPI(M)-controlled cooperative society, the Malabar Tourism Development
Cooperatives Ltd (MTDCL).
Running businesses is not new to Kerala’s Left parties, which manage a
daily newspaper and three super-specialty hospitals among other things,
but always through a cooperative setup. Kerala Dinesh Beedi, the world’s
largest worker-owned cooperative, is one such success story.
But the CPI(M)’s latest burst of entrepreneur****p has upset party
conservatives, who view large tourism and hospitality projects as things
serving the moneyed class. It’s not surprising, then, that Azad, a Left
sympathiser and a former party member, has been provoked to write a
Malayalam book, Karl Marxum Fantasy Parkkum (Karl Marx & Fantasy Park),
attacking the party for “straying” from its path.
Within Kerala’s ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), young cadres and
many ministers have come close to accepting that globalisation is not a
policy but a process they cannot avoid. After the negative publicity
generated by the party’s inclination towards tourism projects at Kannur,
Vismaya’s success has created a positive ripple effect in neighbouring
Kozhikode district. The CPI(M)-controlled Kozhikode District Cooperative
Travel & Tourism Development Society (KTDS) plans a five-star hotel as
well as a hotel management institute, and has shelled out Rs 6 crore to
buy a plot of land in the heart of the city.
No charity, please
Revenues seem to be an im****tant aspect of the cooperative projects.
Consider tourism and hospitality -- a huge shortage of rooms in peak
season is stifling further growth and enables private facilities to
overcharge tourists. According to unofficial re****ts, Kerala’s direct
and indirect earnings from tourism increased to Rs 11,433 crore last
year from Rs 4,500 crore in 2001. The state gets over 600,000 foreign
and six million domestic tourists every year. The industry is crippled
by a capacity shortage and inadequate infrastructure.
Business wise
A peek into the ventures floated by the CPI(M)
* Kerala Dinesh Beedi, world's largest worker-owned co-op
* Deshabhimani newspaper, CPI(M's) mouthpiece
* High-tech hospitals at Kochi, Thalassery, Perinthalmanna
* Vismaya Infotainment Centre, a 30-acre water theme park in Kannur
* Coming soon is a hotel management institute and a 5-star hotel in
Kozhikode
Tourism Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan says: “In peak season, we require
20,000 rooms (across Kerala) but have only 12,000.” The state is also
missing out on the international convention tourism business because it
simply does not have the infrastructure. Balakrishnan, who hails from
Thalassery in Kannur district, is promoting his native Malabar, a
backward region. Those setting up tourism projects in Malabar will get a
special investment subsidy of 15 per cent, against 10 per cent in the
rest of the state.
The cooperatives in the tourism sector are ready to offer shares in the
companies to cash-rich Gulf Malayalees -- who would be quick to notice
that the ventures are not charities but out to make a profit. For
instance, Vismaya prices its tickets at Rs 375 on holidays and Rs 300 on
weekdays. And it is houseful. As P.P. Chandran, Managing Director of
MTDCL, says: “On Gandhi Jayanti, we sold 4,902 tickets as against the
capacity of 2,500 people. But that was under very compelling
cir***stances. Our target is to do a collection of Rs 1.5-2 lakh a day,
but we have averaged around Rs 1.20 lakh.”
Equity stakes welcome
Vismaya itself has been set up by Malabar Pleasures (India) Pvt Ltd, the
company floated by MTDCL. Chandran, keen on a budget hotel next, does
not rule out any option, including the capital markets, for raising
funds. Not surprisingly, not one CPI(M) leader in the party stronghold
of Kannur has said anything in public against Vismaya. The party’s
bosses have so far kept a lid on any discontent, even as key ministers
sup****t such initiatives.
Balakrishnan says he is proud of the work the party-backed cooperatives
are carrying out. “When these societies are already running hospitals,
beedi and coir industries, why not tourism ventures?’’ he asks, adding:
“We will take the number of people employed in the tourism sector from
the 1.2 million now to 2 million in the next 10 years.’’ (Vismaya
employs 300, many of them women.)
Kerala Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac, the leading voice among
ministers backing the trend, defends the profit-making ventures. “It is
a wrong notion that cooperatives must confine themselves to sunset
industries and are meant to take over sick units rejected by
capitalists. Who said cooperatives can run only coffee houses?’’
Isaac, an economist who has taught at the Centre for Development
Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, notes the state can tap the full potential
of its tourism sector only if it is linked to small entrepreneurs. “One
advantage with Kerala is the availability of substantial medium- and
smallscale savings from Gulf returnees,” he says. Given their exposure
to foreign countries and their customs, tourism is an ideal area for
investment for them, Isaac feels.
“Therefore, we should encourage the cooperatives of small entrepreneurs,
Gulf returnees and small-savers to create mediumscale tourism
activities. Kerala lacks capital of sufficient scale,’’ he says. The
MTDCL has 4,100 members at present; the KTDS wants to be bigger as its
home district of Kozhikode has hundreds of small cooperative banks.
The KTDS plans to open star hotels, restaurant chains, tourism
information centres, and tourism and hospitality management institutes.
It will raise equity by issuing three types of shares -- Rs 1,000 for
individual member****p and Rs 5,000 for institutional member****p.
“We plan to launch our project, ‘Rediscover Malabar’, in November. We
are mobilising as much share capital as we can so that we can raise debt
50 times of our share capital. That will help us execute our plans for
Malabar region on a large scale,’’ says Padmanabhan Pallath, Honorary
Secretary of KTDS. The district CPI(M) unit Secretary T.P. Ramakrishnan
and Kozhikode City Mayor M. Bhaskaran, a CPI(M) member, are among KTDS
directors.
Well, in one part of India at least, the CPI(M) has made a success of
its new found attraction for capitalism -- and proved once gain that its
precepts end where its profits begin.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
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"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Re****t on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_
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